There is a dragon on the bookcase pretending to be asleep. It is watching the goings-on in the room. I had to do a commission for my course and my friend (I mean client) wanted a bookcase. How do you make a bookcase into a designer original? Ta-da! Also my tutor didn’t want us making huge projects so I fibbed and told him the dimensions without the crown or the feet. (It is in fact 1800mm tall and 800mm wide).

I hope the feet look rather predatory, they also lift it up so the vacuum can reach under it.

The eye is brass inlay. This was trickey but does get easier with practice. First I made the brass shape and drew round it on thin mdf to cut out a template, oversize. Then I used the trim router to cut a 3mm deep recess and fussed with the template forever until the recess (practice recesses) fitted the brass pieces. Then I bravely cut the recess in the crown and glued the brass in.

In keeping with the theme of dragons and castles, I put bars in the frame of the cupboard, instead of a panel or glass. The feed are spined mitres.

It is pine, stained with “brown oak” and lacquered in the spray-booth at tech.

I needed to make a piece of furniture with a curved element in it for my course at Tech. I also needed an end table for my sofa. I like making cabinets and fitting drawers, so here it is! My curvey cabinet. Beloved of millions, and winner of a certificate of merit in the novice section of the National Woodskills competition, here in NZ.

The sides are glue-laminated panels, three pieces each side, edge joined. The bent sides are American Ash.

The steam bending we attempted seemed to work better for long thin pieces than for wide ones and I just couldn’t get my planks to bend, even when I tried it at home (drawers converted to steam box – hole in the bottom of the top drawer), where I could steam it for hours and add extra weight to the jig by an ingenious method shown.

So I sliced the planks up thinly and glued them up in the jig and joined them together to form (rather wonky) panels. The plan was that the panels would be straight by the time they reached the drawer pocket. Ha ha, in my dreams. So I had to make the drawer with thicker sides which I then shaped to fit into the curvey pocket.

The door and drawer front are a spalted piece of black Maire I found in the scraps bin at tech, and the top is Australian blackwood. It conveniently has a round swirl of grain at the front, which will save me the trouble of making coffee stains on it. I still do, haha.

The last photo is of the cabinet in position, hard at work. Thanks for looking.

Simple-ish project to try out my new table saw. The legs are slightly splayed and the tenons are cut on the table saw but the throat plate is a bit bendy so the tenons were a bit of a mess. Also the blade was scarey so I need a big tall fence to clamp them to and keep my fingers well away. The stripes are made by putting thin contrasting strips in between the pieces of the glue-up. The contrast is rewa rewa, a NZ native, and the rest is macrocarpa. The finish is shellac, which is as easy as oil but less stinky. Actually the strong smell of spirits was great. Thanks for looking

The slats are cut on 7 degrees and the curve was controlled by varying the width of the slats. The stipes are strips of darker (Australian blackwood) between the shaped slats. I planned the box as a table-saw dovetail exercise but I need to make a special crosscutting sled for the tails and I ran out of time. So I made splined mitred sides (messy, should have made another jig). Blackwood again. The rest of the box is macrocarpa. Thanks for looking.

This is a star pattern I found in a library book of traditional patchwork quilt patterns. The ends of the pieces were darkened in hot sand to make it look more over-and-under. This was surprisingly easy and the colour goes right through the wood, so it won’t fade if you have to sand it.

The pattern is veneer over a plywood base, I don’t know what woods the veneers are because it was a project at Tech and we just got the veneers out of a big box full of pieces. The rail is made from macrocarpa, which grows everywhere here in New Zealand. You northerners might know it as Montery Cypress. It was in the scraps bin, too curly to be much use but I just love the golden colour and the figure.

I cut the handles by drilling holes and cutting with a jig saw. But it would have been quicker and less painfull to have made a template and routed it.

It is finished with spray laquer, one coat of sealer and two coats of top coat.

The rain stopped so I ran out and threw a sheet down on the concrete to catch the light for the photo. But the darn sheet just soaked up the water, and got all muddy. Never mind, I’m too lazy to do it again. Thanks for looking.

I am giving upt the bright lights of woodwork for the quiet obsession of playstation games. But I wanted to stop ratbags from grabing it and walking out of the house. It is now screwed into its ventilated box with the heavy tv sitting on top of it. I rescued some tongue and groove boards from the wood pile and I put one huge dovetail in each corner. I finished it with glossy polurethane floor varnish.

I rebuilt my ardirondak chair as a rocker. The neighbourhood kids pulled my garden chair to pieces. Not hard it was just made from nailed up fence pailings, sitting in the rain all winter. But I collected up the pieces and made a rocking chair. Just right for drinking beer in the sunshine. Also it fits my short legs so I can rest them on the ground and rock comfortably

Too lazy to shape it to my head so it hinged each section, it has a nice floppy feel to it. Uncomfortable but that’s true of all crowns, the loneliness of command.

I made it for the Kawerau Woodskills Festival next month, but they changed the categories so I can’t put it into wearable wood after all, it’ll go in with the dressing tables and what have you so I am not expecting to win a prize. I’ll just have fun wearing it around the house haha.

It’s made of pallet wood and offcuts from the scraps bin. And oh yes, it’s a copy of one my cousin made out of cardboard and ping pong balls many years ago. Thanks for looking.

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Mon, 27 Aug 2012 00:24:37 GMThttp://lumberjocks.com/projects/70527slapdashslapdashFolding chair. I had no milled timber so I made it out of stickshttp://lumberjocks.com/projects/65979

Folds okay, surprisingly comfortable and solid. But I find myself reaching out for a beer so I may have to make a matching sidetable